Laser surgery has experienced an exponential growth in recent years. Approximately 4,000 laser surgeries per day are now being performed in the U.S. Lasers are being used in almost every conceivable kind of surgery, from correcting eye dysfunctions to removing warts and corns from the bottom of the foot. Laser surgery is also being increasingly utilized in cancer therapy as well, wherein cancerous tissue is vaporized by a laser beam of a preselected wavelength.
Laser surgery offers many benefits to the patient such as lower cost, reduced length of hospital stay and reduced recovery time since major incisions are often not as necessary as they are in conventional types of surgery. However, it now appears that laser surgery is posing serious health risks to the physician performing the surgery, the nurses attending the physician and the rest of the supporting personnel in the operating room. An increased number of lesions have been noticed in the personnel that perform or assist during laser surgeries. Lesions and other precancerous conditions such as papillomas and chondylomas are appearing at increasing rates on the face, eyes, nose, hands, lips and the larynx and lungs of those performing these surgeries.
During laser surgery of cancerous tissue the malignant tissue is vaporized by a laser beam. This vaporization produces gaseous by-products which can carry infectious, live virus into the surrounding air of the operating room. Gaseous by-products such as smoke can also be produced in conventional types of surgery wherein a surgeon uses an electric scalpel or thermal cauterizer during a surgical procedure. The smoke produced using these instruments often carries infectious virus into the atmosphere of the operating room as well as interfering with a surgeon's view of the surgical site. The live viruses or other materials contained in the gaseous surgical by-products can also adhere onto the eyes, skin and lungs of the personnel in the operating room, causing the above-mentioned lesions.
In laser surgery, a surgeon employs a high intensity laser beam of a preselected wavelength to vaporize infected or tumorous tissue. A smoke plume is often produced as a result of this vaporization. In heretofore employed techniques, the plume of gaseous by-products produced during this surgery was vented directly into the air of the operating room, possibly infecting those in the room. In some instances, a suction wand was maintained proximate the surgical site by an assistant; however these wands are generally rather narrow and hence not very effective at capturing the smoke plume. Additionally, such efforts have been found to interfere with the surgeon's actions. It is therefore desirable to provide a smoke evacuation system for effectively evacuating these infections, gaseous by-products produced during surgery.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,603 to Goodson et al. discloses an intra-abdominal laser smoke evacuation system and method for removing the laser smoke from the site of a laser laparoscopy. Disclosed therein is a closed-loop system wherein CO.sub.2 gas is pumped through a Laparoscopic tube into a body cavity. The laser generated smoke mixes with the pumped-in CO.sub.2 gas which is then vented through a second laparoscopic tube inserted into the patient. This intra-abdominal system removes only laser smoke produced during laparoscopic surgical procedures and requires insertion of at least two tubes into a patient's body as well as maintenance of a flow of CO.sub.2 gas through the patient's body. This system requires a CO.sub.2 gas pump, a discharge line connected with the pump, pressure sensors and inflators and is restricted solely to laparoscopic surgeries.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,606 to Leviton et al. discloses a suction canister assembly for aspirating and collecting liquids and gasses, produced during the surgery. The canister is a containment unit for receiving blood and other surgical by-products, but no means are provided for removing and/or sterilizing smoke produced at a surgical site.
It will thus be appreciated that there is yet a need for a smoke evacuation system which traps and evacuates all gaseous surgical by-products produced at a surgical site. The present invention addresses this problem by providing a smoke evacuation system for use in surgery which includes a portable evacuation hood for effectively trapping and evacuating gaseous surgical by-products at a surgical site. These and other advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the drawings, discussion, description and claims which follow.